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tain regret. Some such charm it must have been which in modern days wrought powerfully on the soul of a Pascal and an Arnauld.' It is not necessary here to balance the good against the evil of asceticism, its follies with its wisdom; or to admit with Mr. Buckle that "it is the prevailing taint of all clerical teaching, the inevitable issue of the Whether theological spirit if that spirit is unchecked."" It certain may or may not belong to a rude stage of society civilizain which isolation is easier and more accessible; and yet its influences might be the more serviceable in an age which measures the interests of society altogether by an utilitarian standard.3 Monasticism, in its best form at least in the West, did not repre- Not necessent solely, or even perhaps mainly, the claims of cetic or an ascetic life. It was practical more than specu- plative. lative: it looked more to "the performance of rigid

1 Compare Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, III. 285-287.

2 III. 272. This author seems to confound asceticism with selfrestraint and in this way he attacks Christianity itself, by impugning the morality of the Gospel. What he really proves is the danger of investing the clergy with secular power, or of accepting as the commandments of God the inferences of men.

3 Thus Mr. Lecky, H. E. M., I. 136: "Asceticism-including under this term not merely the monastic system, but also all efforts to withdraw from the world in order to cultivate a high degree of sanctity— belongs naturally to a society which is somewhat rude, and in which isolation is frequent and easy." See also Hist. Rat., II. 399-401. In H. E. M., I. 155, he observes: "The monastic system, however pernicious when enlarged to excess, has undoubtedly contributed to the happiness of the world by supplying an asylum especially suited to a certain type of character; and that vindictive and short-sighted revolution which is extirpating it from Europe is destroying one of the best correctives of the excessive industrialism of our age."

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duty; to the alternation of severe toil with the observance of an austere ritual, than to dreamy indolence or meditative silence, broken only by the discussion of controverted points of theology." Labour was part of the rule of even the Eastern monks, although too readily abandoned for contemplation. But the contemplative life, though fraught with its own perils, was by no means necessarily identical with a course of self-torture, foreign alike to the dignity and true mission of man. It is not possible within our present limits to dwell on the services rendered by the monastic system of the medieval times to the cause of civiliIts mixed zation and to the progress of mankind. It has been

results,

1 Milman, Lat. Christ., I. 382. So Guizot (II. 65), speaking of the monasteries of Lerins and S. Victor, remarks, "It was by no means with solitude or with mortification, but with discussion and activity, that they concerned themselves." See the fine passage on the agricultural industry of the Monks of the West, in Montalembert, I. p. 7. This writer deems, however, the signal service of Monasticism to have lain in its fostering a spirit of prayer, and in the intercessions continually offered to the Throne of Grace for the sins of mankind, I. p. xlviii.

2 Bernardus valles, colles Benedictus amabat: says an old verse. "The Fathers," writes Mr. Lecky, H. Rat., II. 261, “employed all their eloquence in favour of labour; but it is to the monks, and especially to the Benedictine monks, that the change is pre-eminently due." See also H. E. M., II. 165, where he quotes the rule of S. Paphnutius, "To love labour more than rest," &c., and p. 218, "Scholars, too, adds the old chronicler, are martyrs if they live in purity and labour with courage." At a time when religious enthusiasm was all directed towards the monastic life as towards the ideal of perfection, they made labour an essential part of their discipline. Schmidt, Essai, p. 228, remarks that the motto of Christianity at this period was not the rights of labour, but the duty of labour. It was told of Becket that he habitually performed harvest work at the monasteries with the monks. Sce Hallam, M. A., III. 360, 12th cd.

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called the school whence issued great minds and madmen. Certainly, whatever may be thought of the vain attempt to find Christian perfection in ignoring one-half of human nature; in constituting (as was too often done) one long, unbroken consepenance for the true Christian life; in measuring holiness by suffering, and saintly excellence by prayer and pain: whether it be one stage in the history of thought and feeling through which man's mind and soul pass on to other and nobler things; yet doubtless from the cloistered homes of medieval life went forth the thinkers and workers Its unwho should mould the intellectual frame and even services to the political life of coming generations. For Mo- Chrisnasticism led on the one hand through Scholasticism to a vast expansion of the human understanding; on the other, though to itself unconsciously, to the overthrow of hierarchical and sacerdotal influence.

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"De cette rude école du désert il sortait de grands hommes et des fous."-Villemain, Mélanges, p. 356. Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 348, regards the monks as une milice contemplative." They were called "la Chevalerie de Dieu." He holds that Christian Asceticism tended to abase the passions before the intellectual principle; and that by its monastic orders and property the Church founded an industrial agricultural spirit.

2 "Monastic Christianity led to two unexpected but inevitable results; to the expansion of the human understanding, even till it strove to overleap the lofty barriers of the established Catholic doctrine; and to a sullen and secret mutiny, at length to an open insurrection, against the power of the sacerdotal order.”—Milman, L. Chr., III. 239. "Monastic life in its rise had neither the contemplative nor solitary character; on the contrary, it was highly social and active; it kindled a focus of intellectual development; it served as the instrument of fermentation and propagation of ideas."-Guizot, Civ. en Fr., I. 355.

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But that with which we are now concerned is the the spiri- intensity of spiritual control exercised by monastic

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ence of the Christianity, and the loftiness of its type compared with over-developments of the ascetic tendency. No doubt, its weak point, the inherent defect of all asceticism, was its real selfishness. Its avowed end was the individual salvation of its votaries: this their dominant all-absorbing thought. The good done was in a large measure incidental, or at least Its moral secondary. "Even their charities," it has been truly observed, "went to relieve their own souls: to lay up for themselves treasures of good works, rather than from any real sympathy with the people." Their imitation of Christ began in self, terminated in self: it knew not the truer, humbler self-sacrifice of daily life for parent, wife, and child. And yet it was in many ways a true selfsacrifice not the mere maceration of the flesh of a fakir. In the older and nobler forms of monastic life the loftier ideal combining active good with personal craving after holiness was still present. From the cloister came the most zealous Bishops: the most devoted and successful missionaries. In later times this spirit revived in the Mendicant and Preaching, and, in a different direction, in the Mili

These

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1 Milman, IV. 156. Compare Neander, Ch. H., VII. 325, and Lecky, H. E. M., II. 99, who remarks on the identity of feeling expressed by Sir T. Brown, Rel. Med., II. § 2: "I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God."

2 Cf. Id. VI. 306.

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tary Orders. They spent themselves gladly for their brethren. The very capacity which has often been Its tenremarked in Monasticism of renewing its youth and self-regereverting to the first principles of its constitution proves the same thing.' There was the true salt within and it had not lost its savour. The spirit of self-sacrifice was working still: and on the intensity of that spirit, it has been truly said, "depends the moral elevation of an age, and upon its course the religious future of the world." The faith which forged this instrument to its use, was no baseless dream it struck deep into the roots of human nature, and drew upon its most heroic qualities.' Its Its spiribest enthusiasm became its minister: it wrought siasm. its appointed work till "the history of self-sacrifice has become the history of the action of Christianity upon the world."3 The lofty and unworldly conceptions, born of the faith of Jesus Christ, gave it its type and beauty; and so called it into being. To their influence from first to last, while pure and uncorrupt, it has borne its witness of truth.

1 Comp. Robertson, C. H., II. 698. See Ranke, Popes, II. i. 3. 2 "The Middle Ages," says 66 Montalembert, were the heroic age of Christianity." Comp. Lecky, H. Rat., II. 267.

3 Lecky, u. s., p. 405. Milman, I. 234, thus sums up the benefits secured by Western Monasticism: "It compensated for its usurpation of the dignity of a higher and holier Christianity, by becoming the guardian of what was valuable, the books and arts of the old world; the missionary of what was holy and Christian in the new civilization; the chief maintainer, if not the restorer, of agriculture in Italy; the cultivator of the forests and morasses of the North; the apostle of the heathens which dwelt beyond the pale of the Roman empire." See also Hallam, M. A., III, 301.

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